Name: Jacred Personal Journal:jacred Contact Info: AIM: spidergravyinc | E-mail: tarkya@gmail.com Other Characters Played: N/A Preferred Housing: N/A
Character Name: Mason Cliffside Character Age: 14 Background: World Background: It was nearly a millennium ago when the first humans set foot on Lithos. These colonists from the stars had flown long and far to reach this small, habitable world, some seeking a new life, and others seeking to make a fortune with the world’s resources. Whatever their purpose, they were quick to claim the new world as their own, cannibalizing their ships and the machines that had maintained them to jump-start their infrastructure. In a short hundred years Lithos had become a thriving colony, focused primarily on mining the world’s rich ore deposits.
Two hundred years after landing, the first of the Lithos crystals were discovered. These crystals proved to be a powerful source of energy, making them especially desirable for a society craving new sources of power. Several corporations arose on Lithos, focused on exclusively mining and processing the gems, and then sold them both on world and to other worlds among the stars. Five hundred years in, Lithos was a wealthy world, and its needs were increasingly served by machines that were powered by the very crystals they were built to mine.
Then the crystal mines started running dry.
Faced with the reality of decreasing payloads and higher local demand for the crystals, the corporations of Lithos reduced their exports in an attempt to conserve the diminishing resource. The once peaceful society grew troubled, and as their power and wealth waned the people of Lithos began to fight over what was left. It started small, with a few riots over prices, but as the crystals grew scare soon people were attacking mines and looting storehouses in an attempt to acquire more of the crystals that had become so vital to their way of life. The corporations did what they could to protect their assets, transforming the machines made for mining and farming into mechanical guards, and soon into more proactive soldiers. Such a blatant act of aggression only served to enrage an already desperate populace, and the people responded in kind with machines and weapons of their own.
Six hundred years after landing and fifty years after the mines hit their peak, the once prosperous world of Lithos was nearly unrecognizable. Cities were razed to the ground, and the towers that were built to manage the armies of machines loomed over their remains. The war did end, but not because there was a victor - it ended because the people who remained couldn’t stand to go on any longer. The war nearly ended there, with the people of Lithos coming together to put together their broken society and finding a new beginning. It nearly did, but a new problem arose in the calm.
The machines, which had for so long been the foot soldiers of the war, wouldn’t stop fighting. No one knew if it was a defect in their programming, or some purposeful part of their design, but the consequences were immediate and severe - the machines turned on their masters the moment they tried to shut them down. The war that should’ve ended continued with new players: the people of Lithos, and the machines that once served them, now acting in mindless rebellion.
Fighting the machines turned out to be an exercise in futility, so the people of Lithos instead chose to wage a war of attrition. After all, no matter how powerful the machines were, they ultimately relied on the increasingly rare crystals to power them. The surviving humans retreated into areas where the machines could not reach them and built their strongholds there, anticipating the day that they would finally be able to reclaim Lithos from the machines.
One thousand years after landing, that day finally seems closer than ever. As the machines’ power continues to wane, people have begun to spread out across Lithos, reclaiming old cities and old knowledge. Some people discovered that they possessed the ability to sense crystals in the earth, descendents from some ancient attempt to improve mining output. Even more bizarrely, these people were not only ignored by machines, but they could even give them simple commands, though they were only effective for so long. Eventually these people were called “crystalsmiths”, and with their assistance people were able to launch assaults on the machines and their control towers, accelerating the rebuilding of Lithos. It’s been a long and dark war, but people are finally starting to see the light at the end of it.
Personal Background: Mason’s early life was spent in a small town on the outskirts of Cliffside, a massive city built into the side of a mountain and one of the largest in Lithos. He was only four when the town was attacked by a machine that had wandered into the area unnoticed. Mason lost his parents that day, but he was somehow spared. When people came to investigate the attacks aftermath they found Mason alive, scared and alone in the remains of his home.
There was no family to take him in, so Mason was taken to Cliffside and placed into an orphanage with other children. The adults that ran the orphanage were distant at best, but it was a place of relative stability. For a while Mason was a quiet and sullen boy, but he gradually opened up to the other children in the orphanage. They became his new family, and with their help he started to heal the wounds left by the death of his parents.
In fact, Mason became something of a wild child under their influence. The orphanage caretakers were acceptable at their jobs, but they didn’t provide much love or structure. Mason would often go on “adventures” with his friends, sneaking out of bed at night to explore the city and generally get into trouble. They almost always got caught, and would be punished with extra chores or withheld desserts, but this didn’t dissuade Mason or his friends. The idea that they were terrifying their caretakers didn’t occur to them.
One night, when Mason was feeling particularly daring, he went with his friends and travelled further than they’d ever gone before - to the borders of the city. They didn’t plan to cause trouble; they just wanted to watch the guards perform their duties. They were even lucky enough to see them in the act of fending off a machine patrol, which was about as exciting as the night could get.
Then the machine broke through the defensive lines and made a beeline for the very location the group of children was watching from, and things got a little too exciting. Most of the children were smart enough to bolt, but Mason was paralyzed with fear. As the machine approach, the boy desperately cried out for help, for his parents, for the machine to just go away... and it did. The machine retreated out of the city, and the guards saw it all happen. Mason was taken in and questioned, and soon they found out just how the boy had survived both this recent machine attack and the attack that had orphaned him; he was a crystalsmith.
Crystalsmiths were especially important to the mining economy of Cliffside, so his status was revealed to the city council as soon as possible. Since Mason was already a ward of the state it was easy to foster him out to a family that would train him in the proper use of his skills and prepare him for a future in mining. He wasn’t happy with being taken from the friends he’d made at the orphanage, and at the beginning he caused a lot of trouble for his foster family. Over time he mellowed out some, though he was still hard to handle.
When he had learned everything he would from tutoring, he was sent to work in the Cliffside mines for the first time. It was difficult and dangerous work, but he was quick to learn the tricks and skills needed to survive in a world where tunnel collapses and serious injuries were just part of the job. Over time he managed to befriend the older workers, but people came and went so often that none of his friendships went on for long. Life continued like this for a couple of years, and by the time he was 14 it seemed like that would be its shape forever. Then, he met Harley.
Harley was a traveler who’d come to the mines as a temporary worker, just long enough to earn money for food and supplies. She seemed to take a shine to Mason when they first met, and the two became fast friends. While they didn’t get much time to talk during work, they would often meet up afterwards and talk. Harley would tell the stories of her travels, and Mason would talk about life in the city. It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that Mason loved Harley. Her life was one of freedom and danger and adventure that stretched beyond the walls of Cliffside. Over time he began to see her as not just a friend, but a sister.
But she was only a temporary worker, and when the time came for her to move on he was heartbroken. He’d lost plenty of friends before, but he’d never lost one quite like Harley. It was the last straw. The day she left, Mason decided that he wasn’t going to sit around and let life happen to him any more. He packed up everything he owned, left a note explaining what he was doing, and left the city in pursuit. If his friend wasn’t going to stay in Cliffside, then he would just have to make the effort to stay with Harley. He found her a few days away from the city, and while she was surprised and worried about having a younger boy traveling with her, Mason made it clear that he was going to stay with her. She eventually surrendered, but only on the terms that when she decided to take him home, he would accept the decision without argument. Mason was quick to agree.
Mason Cliffside | Original Character
Personal Journal:
Contact Info: AIM: spidergravyinc | E-mail: tarkya@gmail.com
Other Characters Played: N/A
Preferred Housing: N/A
Character Name: Mason Cliffside
Character Age: 14
Background:
World Background: It was nearly a millennium ago when the first humans set foot on Lithos. These colonists from the stars had flown long and far to reach this small, habitable world, some seeking a new life, and others seeking to make a fortune with the world’s resources. Whatever their purpose, they were quick to claim the new world as their own, cannibalizing their ships and the machines that had maintained them to jump-start their infrastructure. In a short hundred years Lithos had become a thriving colony, focused primarily on mining the world’s rich ore deposits.
Two hundred years after landing, the first of the Lithos crystals were discovered. These crystals proved to be a powerful source of energy, making them especially desirable for a society craving new sources of power. Several corporations arose on Lithos, focused on exclusively mining and processing the gems, and then sold them both on world and to other worlds among the stars. Five hundred years in, Lithos was a wealthy world, and its needs were increasingly served by machines that were powered by the very crystals they were built to mine.
Then the crystal mines started running dry.
Faced with the reality of decreasing payloads and higher local demand for the crystals, the corporations of Lithos reduced their exports in an attempt to conserve the diminishing resource. The once peaceful society grew troubled, and as their power and wealth waned the people of Lithos began to fight over what was left. It started small, with a few riots over prices, but as the crystals grew scare soon people were attacking mines and looting storehouses in an attempt to acquire more of the crystals that had become so vital to their way of life. The corporations did what they could to protect their assets, transforming the machines made for mining and farming into mechanical guards, and soon into more proactive soldiers. Such a blatant act of aggression only served to enrage an already desperate populace, and the people responded in kind with machines and weapons of their own.
Six hundred years after landing and fifty years after the mines hit their peak, the once prosperous world of Lithos was nearly unrecognizable. Cities were razed to the ground, and the towers that were built to manage the armies of machines loomed over their remains. The war did end, but not because there was a victor - it ended because the people who remained couldn’t stand to go on any longer. The war nearly ended there, with the people of Lithos coming together to put together their broken society and finding a new beginning. It nearly did, but a new problem arose in the calm.
The machines, which had for so long been the foot soldiers of the war, wouldn’t stop fighting. No one knew if it was a defect in their programming, or some purposeful part of their design, but the consequences were immediate and severe - the machines turned on their masters the moment they tried to shut them down. The war that should’ve ended continued with new players: the people of Lithos, and the machines that once served them, now acting in mindless rebellion.
Fighting the machines turned out to be an exercise in futility, so the people of Lithos instead chose to wage a war of attrition. After all, no matter how powerful the machines were, they ultimately relied on the increasingly rare crystals to power them. The surviving humans retreated into areas where the machines could not reach them and built their strongholds there, anticipating the day that they would finally be able to reclaim Lithos from the machines.
One thousand years after landing, that day finally seems closer than ever. As the machines’ power continues to wane, people have begun to spread out across Lithos, reclaiming old cities and old knowledge. Some people discovered that they possessed the ability to sense crystals in the earth, descendents from some ancient attempt to improve mining output. Even more bizarrely, these people were not only ignored by machines, but they could even give them simple commands, though they were only effective for so long. Eventually these people were called “crystalsmiths”, and with their assistance people were able to launch assaults on the machines and their control towers, accelerating the rebuilding of Lithos. It’s been a long and dark war, but people are finally starting to see the light at the end of it.
Personal Background: Mason’s early life was spent in a small town on the outskirts of Cliffside, a massive city built into the side of a mountain and one of the largest in Lithos. He was only four when the town was attacked by a machine that had wandered into the area unnoticed. Mason lost his parents that day, but he was somehow spared. When people came to investigate the attacks aftermath they found Mason alive, scared and alone in the remains of his home.
There was no family to take him in, so Mason was taken to Cliffside and placed into an orphanage with other children. The adults that ran the orphanage were distant at best, but it was a place of relative stability. For a while Mason was a quiet and sullen boy, but he gradually opened up to the other children in the orphanage. They became his new family, and with their help he started to heal the wounds left by the death of his parents.
In fact, Mason became something of a wild child under their influence. The orphanage caretakers were acceptable at their jobs, but they didn’t provide much love or structure. Mason would often go on “adventures” with his friends, sneaking out of bed at night to explore the city and generally get into trouble. They almost always got caught, and would be punished with extra chores or withheld desserts, but this didn’t dissuade Mason or his friends. The idea that they were terrifying their caretakers didn’t occur to them.
One night, when Mason was feeling particularly daring, he went with his friends and travelled further than they’d ever gone before - to the borders of the city. They didn’t plan to cause trouble; they just wanted to watch the guards perform their duties. They were even lucky enough to see them in the act of fending off a machine patrol, which was about as exciting as the night could get.
Then the machine broke through the defensive lines and made a beeline for the very location the group of children was watching from, and things got a little too exciting. Most of the children were smart enough to bolt, but Mason was paralyzed with fear. As the machine approach, the boy desperately cried out for help, for his parents, for the machine to just go away... and it did. The machine retreated out of the city, and the guards saw it all happen. Mason was taken in and questioned, and soon they found out just how the boy had survived both this recent machine attack and the attack that had orphaned him; he was a crystalsmith.
Crystalsmiths were especially important to the mining economy of Cliffside, so his status was revealed to the city council as soon as possible. Since Mason was already a ward of the state it was easy to foster him out to a family that would train him in the proper use of his skills and prepare him for a future in mining. He wasn’t happy with being taken from the friends he’d made at the orphanage, and at the beginning he caused a lot of trouble for his foster family. Over time he mellowed out some, though he was still hard to handle.
When he had learned everything he would from tutoring, he was sent to work in the Cliffside mines for the first time. It was difficult and dangerous work, but he was quick to learn the tricks and skills needed to survive in a world where tunnel collapses and serious injuries were just part of the job. Over time he managed to befriend the older workers, but people came and went so often that none of his friendships went on for long. Life continued like this for a couple of years, and by the time he was 14 it seemed like that would be its shape forever. Then, he met Harley.
Harley was a traveler who’d come to the mines as a temporary worker, just long enough to earn money for food and supplies. She seemed to take a shine to Mason when they first met, and the two became fast friends. While they didn’t get much time to talk during work, they would often meet up afterwards and talk. Harley would tell the stories of her travels, and Mason would talk about life in the city. It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that Mason loved Harley. Her life was one of freedom and danger and adventure that stretched beyond the walls of Cliffside. Over time he began to see her as not just a friend, but a sister.
But she was only a temporary worker, and when the time came for her to move on he was heartbroken. He’d lost plenty of friends before, but he’d never lost one quite like Harley. It was the last straw. The day she left, Mason decided that he wasn’t going to sit around and let life happen to him any more. He packed up everything he owned, left a note explaining what he was doing, and left the city in pursuit. If his friend wasn’t going to stay in Cliffside, then he would just have to make the effort to stay with Harley. He found her a few days away from the city, and while she was surprised and worried about having a younger boy traveling with her, Mason made it clear that he was going to stay with her. She eventually surrendered, but only on the terms that when she decided to take him home, he would accept the decision without argument. Mason was quick to agree.
Thus, Mason started on a journey of his own.